President speaks to religious scholars over al-Houthi rebellion

SANA’A, Feb. 19(Saba)-President Ali Abdullah Saleh held here on Monday, a meeting with the members of the Yemen Islamic Scholars Association,talking to them over the latest developments of Sa’ada crisis triggered by some rebels. Addressing the scholars, president Saleh reviewed efforts and endeavors exerted by the government in order to contain and bring this havoc toa halt which first erupted by terrorist accomplices of Badraddin al-Houthi in 2004. He noted that though the general pardon and the release of the involved in the previous rebellion in Sa’ada, those insurgents did not stop targeting the country’s stability and security and surrender their heavy weapons to the government. President Saleh said that scholars and the social and political figures have to play a major role in the guidance and awareness of the true factsof this action in order to not to let ambiguity or misunderstanding among some people to follow those rebels or back them. “What is currently taking place in Sa’ada merely bent on the destruction of the Yemeni revolution and unity and aims at redisplaying the unstablehistory of Yemen,” Saleh said. President added that: “We are a united nation that rejects any kind of disorder which some people try to engender under some faint pretexts.” He said that those rebel hooligans intended by causing killings and destruction, destabilization of peace and security and impeding development to implement foreign plots against Yemen. “We rejected all that and we will firmly encounter it.” said Saleh. Finally, president Saleh pointed out that the legislative and liberal achievements that Yemen reached basically resulted from the Islamic religion. AM/AH SABA